Guess What Mrs. Kettle Has?

I decided not to leave you guessing. I've got pictures!! I'll be finally finishing the posts from pre-wedding land and then launching into my recaps.

Here are a few more photos to whet your palate. All photos have been released to me by my fabulous photographer Jolie Images. So all captions on pictures will be my commentary on the wedding moment, not a reference line.

Sneaking outside for a quick pic in the snow.

A lovely detail shot of our seating chart.

This is one of my favorite pics of all 1500 of them. It's Mr. Kettle and his 10 attendants.

Getting ready to put on my dress; it went so differently from how I pictured it.

Getting married, having prayer, feeling close.

Mr. Kettle and me with my immediate family.

Mr. Kettle and me with his immediate family.

What's The Big Deal About A Day-of-Coordinator?

There's a day-of-coordinator option that was available to us through our first florist interview. She works at the gallery and she's pretty amazing.

In spite of my natural urge to sign on the line with the first person who's offer sounds good, I resisted. Momma Kettle made and appointment with another day-of-coordinator for this week. Her prices are waay better than the first lady, but we'll see how the meeting goes. I'll be happy to report back to the hive, if only to help people in the Chicago area who are looking for coordinators.

I started thinking about why we really needed one though. I know for a fact that we definitely want one. But why? Here are the reasons I came up with:

1. You really get to relax the day of your wedding, no hassles on vendor payments and tracking down family for portraits.
2. Your friends/family get to relax the day of your wedding. They won't be delegated the responsibility of organizing reception flowers or making sure the seating chart is visible and programs are handed out.
3. All your vendors (and your wedding party members) have a one stop shop at which to direct questions
4. If your DOC is awesome, he/she'll be involved before the actual day, helping with the wedding rehearsal and helping create time lines for events.

Having that type of help considering how large our wedding is will likely be completely essential. It's not a wasted expense for our piece of mind. Neither Momma Kettle nor I will have to keep downing champagne all night because someone else will be handling the oops! moments of the day.

Are you going to have/Did you have a DOC? Would you recommend one for a wedding as large as mine?

Planning For Inclement Weather

Most weddings happen in the summer months. June is the most popular month for weddings. People fight over getting the perfect wedding day.

Image via Gazillion Movies

I have avoided this issue by choosing to get married in February. Mr. Kettle and I have been very happy with our selection of wedding date. But there is one possible hitch to our happy wedding: winter Illinois weather.

There was a terrible storm this past winter. In Chicago, a little snow doesn't bother us. But when this storm was on it's way, people went to the grocery store and then went home. They didn't come back out for at least a couple days. There were no cops or buses on the street; who would drive a vehicle through a few feet of snow? There was no one out except Walgreens employees.

I didn't think too much about that happening to our wedding. I figured that through sheer will, the weather would be nothing but a bit of sunshine and light snow. I'd stand there in my pretty dress with the matching veil and perhaps a lovely fur coat taking in a few snow flakes and hopefully some wintry sunshine. Kind of like this.

Personal cartoon. Yeah, you all will be subjected to my cartoons now... I mostly put on the coat so Mr. Kettle won't see the part of the dress he doesn't know about.

But when Hurricane/Tropical Storm sidelined a few weddings, I started thinking about the real possibility that something could happen to keep my wedding from occurring on the day or at the location we're planning on. At our tasting next month, I will bring up the issue with our venue to see if they have any contingency plans they go with for winter events.

That is not enough for me though. I looked online and found wedding insurance. My best internet friend Google brought up four sites that I took a look at.

They are: Wedding Protector Plan, WedSure, WedSafe, and The Event Helper.

After looking at all the options, it's really best that I consult with our venue to see which one of these would be best for us. I'm not sure how much coverage we need and what our backup wedding plan is. Also, I don't know if we should be getting coverage just for postponing the event. Perhaps we should add photographer coverage, deposit coverage? And what in the world is professional counseling coverage?

I'm thinking worst case scenario, we can get over to my church which is right across the street from my parents' house and next door to my pastor's house. We could get married there even in a blizzard, we'd just have to figure out a party to celebrate with family and friends later. There's a lot to figure out, but I've got a couple of months to sort it out.

Are you getting wedding insurance? Are you worried about Mother Nature altering your carefully laid plans?

Figuring Out Flowers - My Inspiration

Our first meeting with a possible photographer is tomorrow afternoon, so I thought now would be a good time to share with the hive my inspiration for flowers. At just under 5 months (151 days to be exact), I feel like we're moving a bit slow on the florist front.

I felt a bit paralyzed and unable to start one major vendor search until a previous one was completed. But as soon as we made our decision on photographer/videographer, it was time to make appointments for photographers. I will tell you which three photographers I hope to meet with and choose from eventually, but first, my inspiration!!

Momma Kettle and I talked about at least as much as anything else we discussed about the wedding when it was still a vague concept in our minds. I knew I wanted lovely rose bouquets for me and the girls, and lovely rose bouts for the guys and corsages for the other important ladies. Luckily, Mima Kettle had this idea too. I love it when we're all on the same page!

I also knew I wanted flowers as the main focus of the table centerpieces. I wasn't sure how I wanted it to look until Momma Kettle mentioned the words "flower box." As soon as she said it, the words have stuck with me. I imagined a lovely fancy wedding version of the full flower boxes you see outside the windows of beautifully decorated houses and apartments. She didn't like this image at all, but I was stuck there and wasn't budging. I began scouring for images that could put together what I imaged. My idea evolved to not be a wooden or plastic box with dirt showing to something more like a bouquet in a box to a bouquet in a glass box.

I don't remember exactly where, but one of the bees linked to a website that showed a ton of pictures that were exactly what I had been seeing in my head. So many options, all in one place. I finally had the perfect inspiration to show my mother and our potential florists. I had visions of dead-on quotes from florists and my mother happily acquiescing to my vision with no complaints. Would you like to see what my inspiration/vision is hive? Of course you do!

All images below via Flower Girls of TulsaSouth Loop Floral Gallery. We found them when we were searching for an engagement party venue. This florist had within their shop the only arches I've ever seen that I didn't dislike on site.



I don't know if the glass is colored or there is purple water in here, but I love the color. My mother hates that you can see the stems, I love that you can see the stems.



I like the random arrangement of stems in the bottom, plus all the greenery on top. I really want wintry greenery incorporated into my flower arrangements.



White roses! I'm in heaven. Throw in some sort of berry and we're there!



I know I love this idea because I even like it with so much pink!



Various glass shapes and rose colors. Hadn't considered that, but I am now!



Various boxes that aren't just glass... Hmmm, maybe.

Who are the photographers I'll be presenting with these pictures? I'll tell you as we actually schedule the meetings. First up is the

And what do they have on the very front of their main webpage?

Image via South Loop Floral Gallery

This is a good sign. A very good sign.

I'm going to this meeting with Momma Kettle, Mima Kettle, and Grandmother Kettle. Between the four of us, we're sure to overwhelm whoever takes that meeting, but I know we'll walk out with a clear idea of if they can give us what we want in the price range we'd prefer.

The Verdict On The Ascot

In a previous post, I talked about Mr. Kettle and his journey to get clothes for the men in the wedding party. I talked about the ascot he wanted to wear and how I was very much against it.

I put up a poll and asked if you all thought he should go with the ascot or not. Some people put up some comments that were... harsh... to say the least. Ouch guys. You know Mr. Kettle reads this blog, right? As well as his mother, Mima Kettle. You can't say those things like we're having girl time over martinis. But I digress.

Most of you seemed to think he should be able to wear what he wants since that's what I'm doing. I don't necessarily agree with that because he and I have lots of input regularly on what we wear from day to day. I checked with him to make sure he was okay with my dress length, color, and style. Believe me, if he'd wanted me in an all white trumpet gown with a 10 ft train and I didn't look terrible in it, that might be what I was wearing. But again, I digress.

The hive voted on the poll, over 100 people gave their opinions. It was about even, but now it keeps creeping in the direction of... ascot! I have to say at first this didn't make me happy. Mr. Kettle and I got into 2-3 pretty heated discussions about it. It wasn't even about the ascot (at least not on my end), but the tux in general, as well as communication between him and other male members of the wedding party. It was bad, real bad.

I think after he and I got into it at Mima and Poppa Kettle's house this past Sunday, the dams broke. He realized he was kind of being a jerk. I realized I was kind of being a jerk. We both stopped our jerkiness and came to a compromise.

Image: Compromise Cartoon via Calbuzz

 Our compromise was that he would get the ascot. Mima Kettle pointed out that he didn't have much of a neck anyways, so losing it wasn't a big deal. He will probably get a black ascot to wear with the black tuxes the men will be wearing. The groomsmen will wear black tuxes, black vests, and purple ties. The ushers will wear black tuxes, taupe vests, and taupe ties. The ring bearers will wear black tuxes, taupe vests, and taupe bow ties. Daddy Kettle and Poppa Kettle will both wear black tuxes, black vests, and black ties.

I agreed to help Mr. Kettle make sure he was getting the right colors for the suits, and he agreed to let me pester him about informing the wedding party guys of what their responsibilities are for their wedding day clothes. Here is what they'll be wearing.



Image: Perry Ellis Virgo Tux via Formally Modern Tuxedo

Hot right? They will look fantastic on their day, ascot and all. It feels good to let go of my apprehensions and not let my crazy bride brain cause a rift in otherwise happy feelings Mr. Kettle and I have had toward each other throughout the planning process.

Bride Brain Image via Tara Getting Married Blog
This particular picture can be traced back through several blogs that always source yet another blog.

How did you settle differences in wedding planning ideas? What are your guys wearing for your wedding?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - First Dance Edition

I'm not a very decisive person. I certainly have my moments where I know right away what I want. That has happened more with this wedding than anything else in my life, which is a relief. However, I do have a problem making firm decisions unless I have a gut reaction.

My gut hasn't had much to say about what our musical selections should be for the wedding, unfortunately. You'd think that because I'm marrying a musician, the choices would be easier, right? Nope! He and I have complimentary, but still quite different tastes in music. We've run across a number of options for our wedding music, but we don't have any choices firmly selected.

I won't go into overkill and talk about ceremony music and all that (at least not yet), but I will talk about our first dance. It's a very important moment in the wedding day for Mr. Kettle and I because we break into dance quite often. We were waltzing, literally waltzing, after his gig at the Bucktown Arts Festival last Saturday. Don't judge us.

We don't want to do a full choreographed dance because that's not our style, but the song choice is of the ultimate importance. Don't ask us if the DJ or the jazz trio will play it because we don't know yet. Want to hear our options we've gone over? Of course you do.

There are these two songs by Brian McKnight on his album href="http://shorl.com/robrivajokutra">Ten that I love. I played it for Mr. Kettle and he loved it too. We thought it would be a good option for our first dance. It basically got ruled out later simply because Mr. Kettle couldn't recall it. Not a good sign for a musician with a great memory. It's really the href="http://shorl.com/tedrinabelite">lyrics to I Do and the href="http://shorl.com/pepyfravepogi">lyrics to The Rest of My Life and the pretty music that make it a great first dance candidate though.
<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0b09TUxBNgQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe>
<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TSqVE6NKTRE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe>

Okay, up next is another song that's tied into href=http://www.weddingbee.com/2011/08/08/love-stories/">when we first decided we would try dating again. It's this song by Mayer Hawthorne called Shiny and New. Again, the music and href="http://shorl.com/bryfrydrusufrydru">lyrics really just do it for us.
<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kz3D6hh-TyI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe>

There's another I wanted, but Mr. Kettle and I never really discussed it. It's a song by Maxwell call Whenever, Wherever, Whatever. If you've ever heard this song, you know why it'd make a great first dance song. Again, great href="http://shorl.com/dinubelirobru">lyrics and music.
<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DlSU15jhyV0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe>

Currently, the choice we're thinking of going with is a jazz song Mr. Kettle and I can't help but get up and slow dance too if he plays it in our apartment. It's a lovely song by Roy Hargrove called Trust. The melody just makes me feel romantic and very wedding-like.
<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HQeSfeBbUEI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe>

The only downside to this selection is that Mr. Kettle feels like it would be a bit, um, on the nose if he, a jazz musician, dances to a jazz song. I saw we should be rebels and do what we want!

Was your first dance song selection a difficult choice? What did you choose? What should we choose?

Figuring Out A Wedding Budget

Every bride should know that it's very important to have your priorities in mind when figuring out where the money for your budget will go. I knew this. I just didn't know my priorities weren't so set in stone.

At first, my priorities were:
1. Food
2. Flowers
3. Clothes
4. Everything else in no particular order.

But then... I realized every venue I was even remotely interested in made their own food. So finding the perfect caterer to fill all my wedding culinary dreams wasn't going to happen. I also realized that I really love roses and wasn't very interested in much else. Variety was over-rated (at least for now).

Also, choosing the clothes for the wedding party was a relatively simple process that didn't involve more than 1 store visit to 2 store for each group of people getting clothed. And since each clothing item came in under budget, I had to reconfigure my budget priorities.

Food was now included in the reception budget that now also included ceremony budget since we were one-stop-shopping. Clothes ended up being a less significant portion of the budget. Flowers still has the same budget for now, but that's subject to change once we actually start meeting with florists.

After coming to terms with our large guest list, I realized that venue, stationary, and photography were going to have to move up in priority. Momma Kettle was also realizing around this time that perhaps Chateau Bu-Sche wasn't really where we should have the wedding. On the recommendation of a couple of colleagues/friends, she began to reconsider.

She and Daddy Kettle sat down with Mr. Kettle and I to revise our budget. This was the second time we had done this.

We discussed all the options available to us, including reducing our honeymoon budget and photography budget in order to accommodate a large number at guests at a nicer venue. We played with the numbers and ultimately decided it was worth it to try and make the change.

We knew photography was important, but we decided to find a photographer to fit into the new budget instead of splurging. Our final (for now) budget split is as follows:

Image: Calculator by Discovery Education

Music: 2.5% (yay for marrying a musician)
Wedding Day & Prep Beauty: 0.7%
Brides Clothes/Accessories: 3.3% (yay for already owning most of what I'm wearing)
Flowers: 2.25%
Gifts/Favors: 1%
Invitations: 3.75%
Photography & Videography: 6.25%
Engagement Party: 4.25%
Wedding/Reception [food, linens, decorations, drinks, etc.]: 76%

Being a one-stop-shop is expensive. But we'll get everything we want and need. It's definitely not the budget I thought we'd have, but it's the one that will give us the wedding of our dreams. When I say "our" I mean it. I think Momma Kettle has been dreaming about my wedding longer than I have.

When I Get All Steamed Up Hear Me Shout!

Okay, so maybe I've been dying to include all the lyrics from "I'm A Little Teapot" somewhere. I'm Miss Kettle and I'm quirky. Forgive me hive, I just can't help myself. So, what is a shouting-and-steamed-up teapot referring to? Music of course!

One of the best things about marrying a musician is the direct benefits to my ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception. We are having, wait for it, three different sets of musicians. We're going to have a string trio for our ceremony, a jazz trio for our cocktail hour, and a DJ for our reception. It's going to be amazing.

The day Mr. Kettle announced our engagement on Facebook, he asked who would play at our wedding for free and several people responded. He was joking, but he definitely took them up on their offer.

The DJ is a friend of his who's soooo good down in St. Louis. He'll be coming in for our wedding. He's spinning for us as a wedding gift. Also, we're having three musician friends of Mr. Kettle's playing live jazz music during our cocktail hour. They also offered to play as a wedding gift.

The string quartet for the ceremony didn't offer to pay for free, but they are doing a reduced price for us. Winning!

Music is something that's very important to me for our big day and I feel so blessed that I am able to have these things that are a high priority for me while still having budget money available for other things, like flowers!

This is what I imagine for our wedding music.

Image: Palmetto Strings String Trio Photo

Image: Scottsdale Music and Entertainment

Image: Outer Banks Video DJs